The Little Old Lady Behaving Badly

by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg

  “You are such a good man. You always think about how you could improve society,” said Martha, looking at him with appreciation.

  “But you do too, Martha, with your bonuses to health care and all that,” said Brains.

  Then she leaned forward and gave him a hug followed by a warm, wet kiss on his mouth.

  “What, goodness . . .” muttered Brains and once again he felt that warmth inside him. He mustn’t forget it. And sooner or later that wedding would take place. This encouraged him and he stroked Martha on her cheek. She smiled and opened her flowery handbag. He didn’t know what he expected, but she didn’t take out a flower, or a notepad, just another pair of theater binoculars.

  “Now you can see the Jet Ski a little better,” she said. “How it is constructed and all that. And incidentally, when you are looking, you can keep an eye out for Bielke’s boat too.”

  “Crime instead of a wedding!” muttered Brains and suddenly he looked very tired.

  AFTER THEY HAD DRUNK THEIR AFTERNOON COFFEE, THEY ordered a taxi and returned to the harbor where they had a pier and some jetties left to search. Bielke’s yacht must be somewhere, and perhaps it had come in today—unless, of course, forbid the thought, he had rented it out for a whole month. While they strolled along the quay they were unusually quiet. The sweet cakes had made them tired and at the same time they were thinking about how serious things were. The new crime was so much bigger and more difficult than the coups they had carried off so far, and it demanded that they must all be in top form. But if they were successful, they would be able to give away even more bonus payments to those with low wages. And just think how many retirees there were who lived below the poverty line and had to save on food bills to survive—while the Jet Skis alone on a luxury yacht like that were worth millions.

  Martha fumbled around in her handbag and pulled out a packet of flavored chocolates. They were always calming when she was angry. And now she must really keep her nerves under control to manage the coup they were about to undertake. It was more complicated than their previous ones, because they would have to sell the booty too, otherwise they wouldn’t get any money. But you couldn’t just put an ad on eBay. How could they find a buyer? It was true that they had chosen the most luxurious hotel in all of Saint-Tropez so that they could look for customers, but even so. They didn’t exactly have a network of potential buyers. Luckily, the rooms and the beds were comfortable. In contrast to modern offices and other rotten workplaces, they did at least have a nice setting in which to plan their crime. Martha was slightly ashamed, but she had begun to be really fond of five-star luxury hotels.

  Kube Hotel on Pearl Beach was just such a hotel with two pools, designer suites, sauna, spa, satellite TV and your own jacuzzi. Here too was a fitness area with exercise bikes, dumbbells, treadmills and a pool, so that they could keep in shape. Meanwhile, they continued their recon because the financiers hung out here too—those indoor men with shares, fat wallets and muscles. The most important consideration of all, when they had been choosing a hotel, had been the conferences. Martha had figured out that the International Yacht Boating Club was to hold their annual meeting here and the hotel would be crawling with billionaires. So she had really thought of everything—but the most important thing eluded them. They hadn’t seen a trace of Bielke’s boat and without that they wouldn’t have anything to sell.

  48

  MARTHA WAS IN THE HOTEL’S FITNESS CENTER WHEN IT HAPPENED. As with so many other important meetings in life, it occurred suddenly and was totally unexpected. Martha had just finished with the dumbbells and looked as if she was about to expire on the hotel’s exercise bicycle when she caught sight of him. A nice-looking man, aged about forty-five, wandered into the fitness center with a towel nonchalantly thrown over his shoulders. He had straight, blonde hair, long eyelashes, sky-blue eyes and a very masculine way of moving. When he saw her, he gave her a friendly nod, pulled out a mat and started with push-ups. After doing fifty or so, he took a little breather and got onto one of the exercise bicycles over by the window. He was wearing red Nike performance shoes and when he pedaled, his thigh muscles tensed up like enormous steel cables. Martha stared. His powerful biceps and well-trained torso without an ounce of fat reminded her of a sculpture by Michelangelo, and the sight of him in all his glory caused her to stop cycling. Confused, she gasped for air, fumbled to find the handlebars and almost fell off.

  “Are you OK, my dear?” the man asked in accented English, hurrying across to her. Shaken, she looked up and found herself staring at the shining washboard stomach. Not until he laid his broad, strong hand on her shoulder did she succeed in mumbling something, and, in her confusion, she patted his biceps. Then she realized what she had done and was so mortally embarrassed that she couldn’t manage a single word.

  “Should I call a doctor?” asked the man, with a worried look, speaking with what sounded like a Russian accent.

  But Martha shook her head, because now she had caught sight of the thick gold bracelet, the gold chain with a cross around his neck, and his gold watch with a compass and diamond inlays. Her brain went on turbo charge. The man had a fortune on him and had a Russian accent, perhaps he was a Russian oligarch? You hardly got richer than that—well, perhaps some Malaysian businessmen and, of course, the eighty or so people in the world who, together, were richer than half of the world’s population put together. Whatever, this man was a possible prey for the League of Pensioners. Many of the Russian oligarchs were in their forties and had made their fortunes during the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. They were men who liked to display their riches, and perhaps he even owned one of the Ferraris outside the hotel. If she had been forty years younger, she would have behaved like the 1970s dames in a James Bond film, she would have swayed her hips, fluttered her eyelashes and taken him up to her room. But she didn’t have much choice. She pretended to faint, fell forwards across the handlebars and waited for him to be chivalrous and save her. And she had not been wrong. The next second she felt his arms around her body and when he lifted her up off the bicycle and stood with his arm around her shoulders and again asked if she was all right, she nodded in relief. Now she had established contact. And she had also acquired a bit of practical information: he stank of vodka. A rich oligarch who drank. It couldn’t be better.

  “I’m Martha,” she said and held out her hand.

  “Oleg, Oleg Pankin,” said Oleg and he squeezed her hand so that it was almost crushed. Martha beamed. She had insisted that they should stay among millionaires and now this had led to something. Pleased with the result, she went up to tell the others.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DREAMING ABOUT, SWEETHEART?” BRAINS wondered a few days later when he and Martha were recuperating at a little cafe in the harbor together with the others. “You’ve been quiet for so long that I’m starting to become really worried.”

  The palm trees bent in the wind and the afternoon breeze caused the umbrellas to flutter. All of them had each had a coffee and now they sat gazing out across the water. Martha looked up and felt as if she had been caught. Her thoughts couldn’t leave the Russian. She had told the others about her joy at meeting a Russian oligarch in the hotel gym, but if she had been really honest with herself, that wasn’t all she was thinking about. Business, that is. Even elderly women like the sight of a handsome man, she had realized, and she had never spent so much time in a gym as she had done over the last few days. As nonchalantly as she could manage, she put down her coffee cup and looked out across the water, careful not to look anybody in the eye.

  “Oh, what am I dreaming about? Five hundred million kronor, of course—” and this was not a direct lie—“and I’m thinking about Oleg as well, that muscular Russian, you know,” she said.

  “Not as a he-man, surely?” Brains wondered suspiciously. “I’ve heard you mumbling about biceps and washboards at night.”

  Martha shook her head and tried to hide the fact that she had started to blush. She looked even more intently
out across the water.

  “Ugh, this is about how we can lay our hands on his fortune, you understand. Five hundred million, you know; not everybody has that sort of money,” she answered, rather stretching the truth. “But, of course, a man who takes care of his body is always nice, no, I mean interesting. That is, it makes you wonder how much he trains and what his diet is.”

  “Thought as much,” muttered Brains and he looked down at the roundness that reflected his comfortable lifestyle. “But my belly is a much better pillow, no matter what you say!”

  “I know, I know, and don’t think that I fall for appearances,” Martha assured him, but now she had bright red patches on her cheeks. She leaned back in her chair. What heavenly blue eyes the Russian had, and how nice it had felt when he’d helped her up onto the exercise bicycle. It was pleasurable, yes, but it was all about business, except—well, perhaps she did simulate dizziness rather too often, but she wanted him to think that she had problems with her balance. Because she had her plan.

  “IS IT REALLY TRUE THAT YOU DON’T FALL FOR APPEARANCES?” she heard Brains ask. But thankfully she didn’t have time to answer before Rake cut in.

  “Have you seen that?” he said pointing. A large boat with a wooden deck was making its way to the pier. The yacht didn’t have one helicopter pad but two and an enormous slide down from the upper deck all the way to the sea. On board you could see men in white who were preparing to dock the boat, and some women in their twenties who were waving to friends on land. That was a much finer boat than Bielke’s; indeed, it was one of the finest she had seen since they had arrived in Saint-Tropez. They all stood up at the same time and Anna-Greta waved to the waiter.

  “Time to pay,” she said, pulling out her glasses and looking at the receipt. “It’s an expensive view here too,” she grumbled and put the exact amount on the plate. He had been so slow and impolite that he wasn’t getting a tip.

  “Come on, let’s go over there,” said Rake.

  “Absolutely,” Martha said and got the others to agree. They had only just reached the pier when they heard a car behind them.

  “A Rolls-Royce,” Brains noted and he smiled with his whole face, just as if it had been a Harley Davidson. A large black limousine was driving in the direction of the boat. It slowed down and stopped close to the gangplank. A uniformed chauffeur hurried to open the door for a man in his fifties. He had a chinstrap beard, a white suit, light-blue shirt with a tie and a yachtsman’s cap. But that wasn’t what caught Martha’s interest, it was something else. The man who had got out of the car walked with long, bouncy steps and with his arms swinging by his sides. And she only knew one person who walked like that.

  49

  MARTHA AND HER FRIENDS QUICKLY WITHDREW AGAINST the wall a few meters away where a truck was parked. Behind it they were well-hidden, but they could still peek out and see what was happening on the yacht. Yep, it WAS him. Their neighbor, business tycoon Carl Bielke. The crew stood there lined up on the main deck against the rail, and on the deck above a little girl of around five years old was waving.

  “Daddy, Daddy,” she called out in Swedish and jumped up and down in excitement like children tend to do. But Carl Bielke pretended not to see her. Instead he stopped and turned to the crew. Smiling, he walked around the deck and talked to them and snapped at the girl when she called out again. Not until he had done a complete round of the deck and had been inside the bridge did he take the stairs up to the uppermost deck where the girl was waiting. Martha watched the scene, all eyes.

  “Good God!” she mumbled and thought about the son she had lost when he had been about the same age, a child she had grieved over ever since. Here her rich neighbor had a very-much-alive daughter but he didn’t care about her. A man for whom belongings and prestige seemed to be more important than his family. She shook her head and immediately felt very sad. Christina must have seen her because the next moment her friend was next to her, putting her arm over her shoulder.

  “He who doesn’t realize how rich he is, is poor, and can never be really happy,” she said with a glance at the boat. “We might be doing him a favor when we steal his yacht.”

  “Yes, a man who has several luxury cruisers can probably never be satisfied,” Martha responded.

  “Unless they are tax-deductible of course,” Anna-Greta pointed out.

  “Ah yes, perhaps that is why he has bought a new one, if that is indeed his,” said Martha.

  “But look, it says Aurora Four, the same name as his home address in Djursholm—Auroravägen, that is. So it must be his. Perhaps he has sold one of the other boats because this big one must be worth much more than five hundred million. There you are, the rich are always striving for something bigger and more expensive,” Christina commented.

  “Exactly,” Martha agreed.

  “But we aren’t one bit better. Every crime we plan has to bring in more money than the previous one,” said Brains.

  “Er—um . . .” said Martha. “But you know why. Even more money for those in poverty; you haven’t forgotten that surely?”

  “Sh, somebody might hear us,” Rake warned them, but, like the others, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the enormous luxury boat. They saw how Bielke gesticulated up there on deck, disappeared and then came out again with a whiskey glass in his hand. Then he was joined by three young women half his age. They sat down on the deckchairs beside a pool with glasses in their hands.

  Anna-Greta stared. “This boat is certainly extremely expensive. Let me see . . .” She tried to remember all the boats she had googled and did some rapid calculations in her head. “Two helicopter pads, three decks, a waterslide down to the sea, two swimming pools and Jet Skis, yes, that would be worth six to seven hundred million at the very least.”

  “Excellent! Then we can raise the bonuses to all the home care staff,” said Martha.

  “But a palace like that is hard to steal. We will need help,” Rake commented.

  “And such an expensive boat must be much harder to sell,” Christina added.

  “But it will bring in more money!” said Anna-Greta, her eyes glistening.

  Not until Bielke had vanished with the women to his cabin did the friends dare be on their way. Despite itching wigs and careful disguise they had realized that they could be recognized. Better to be on the safe side. But before they left, Martha got out her cell and photographed the yacht. She zoomed in on every detail of the boat and even went out on one of the other jetties to take pictures of the bow and the starboard side. She worked away and did everything to portray the luxury yacht in as attractive a light as possible. And in the end she even asked Brains to take some pictures of her and the boat. She quietly snuck up to the jetty railing and stood there with a smile like someone showing off their property.

  That evening, the League of Pensioners sat up until late and concocted plans. And before they went to bed, Rake had phoned his son Nils, the first mate. Since he was a seaman who had spent many years at sea and had experience of different types of vessels, he would fit perfectly. It was just such a skilled seaman they needed.

  “You see,” Rake had said to the others, looking important, “a theft like this can only be carried out by real seamen. So you need both Nils and me.”

  THE NEXT DAY, MARTHA CAUTIOUSLY OPENED THE DOOR TO THE conference room where the International Yacht Boating Club was holding its meeting. She pretended that she had walked into the wrong room, but she had time to see that many of the middle-aged men that she had earlier seen by the pool were there, including Oleg, who was looking at a pile of brochures and documents. She silently backed out of the room, closed the door and looked for the sign next to it that showed how long the conference was booked for. Oleg and his colleagues would be busy all morning. So she had time to prepare herself.

  A FEW HOURS LATER, MARTHA WENT DOWN TO THE GYM AS usual and started her afternoon session, and this time she had her large flowery handbag with her. She carefully put it down next to the bike before mou
nting it and starting to pedal away. Just as she was beginning to get a little sweaty, Oleg came in with his naked torso and his white towel over his shoulder. It was time to put her plan into action. The two smiled at each other and the Russian started his customary push-ups. When he had finished and was just getting onto an exercise bike, Martha made a few slight groaning sounds. Then she slowly started to climb down from the bike. When she didn’t get any help straight away she groaned a bit more so that Oleg looked up. Then she pretended to fall down roughly like Anna-Greta used to do when she slipped with her walking stick. Now Oleg was there in a flash and he picked her up and she waited—a rather surprisingly long time—in his arms until her body slowly came to life again.

  “Oh dear me, I think I must have lost my balance,” she explained.

  He helped her onto her feet and she felt his strong arms around her and closed her eyes with a sigh.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes—yes, I’m fine,” she mumbled and she pretended to be a bit groggy, as though she hardly knew where she was. He took her hand and put it on the handlebar of the exercise bike.

  “Hold on to this!”

  “Oh, your hands are so . . .” she mumbled but managed to restrain herself at the last moment. Even if it had been quite a while since forty-five-year-old men had held her in their arms, she must retain her authority and sharpness. “Dearie me, I’ve got so old,” she complained apologetically, then she wobbled a little, clutched at the handlebars and tried to look very unhappy. “My balance, you know, not so easy when you get old!” she pointed out. “But I do my exercises. Because I don’t want to sell my new motor yacht. Absolutely not.”

  “Yacht?”

  “Yes, my super yacht. Looks like Spielberg’s famous one, you know, but with two helicopter pads.” She saw how his eyes started to glisten.

  “But a rough sea and poor balance can be a dangerous combination,” Oleg pointed out.